One slight problem underlying Amol Rajan Interviews: Ian McKellen (BBC Two) was that the last time the two met, McKellen told Rajan that he would never perform Shakespeare again. The next time they met it was to discuss his latest role as Hamlet. Beware world-first exclusives with eminent Shakespearians.
Still, Rajan does acknowledge that interviewing a consummate performer is a tough gig. The thing with McKellen is that it doesn’t matter as he’s always great entertainment. And Rajan knew to let his star do most of the talking. Over the years there have been a lot of detailed McKellen profiles, so the challenge for Rajan here was to find a new way to crack this particular nut.
He went in big: Rajan’s thesis was that McKellen, born in 1939, has lived a life that charts the story of postwar Britain. And as he took us through his upbringing in Wigan, in an age before television where local theatre was magic to young eyes, and on through Shakespeare and into the movie world, gay rights and latent prejudice more generally, it just about held.
What hampers Rajan, however, is what I suspect is an edict from on high – that he must grab headlines. As such the last 10 minutes saw Rajan throw out the McKellen-as-postwar-cultural-almanac theory and go for the spicy stuff: what did he think about non-Jews playing Jewish people? What did he think about award ceremonies? Could he say something mildly controversial that might trend on Twitter?
It all sat oddly with the first hour, and indeed the final minutes, where Rajan told McKellen about his own father’s recent passing: does Sir Ian think about death? Well of course he does, but not at the same time as “gym or Pilates”? as Rajan had just asked him.
McKellen, as this made clear, is more than capable of sustaining a serious line of enquiry. He’s some way beyond the publicity game. Whoever oversees this format should let Rajan get on with the conversation and eschew the cheap prodding. Asked whether he prefers Shakespeare or Dickens, McKellen rightly said: “Well that’s not a sensible question.”
